That Summer
by lolaf
Summary: <html><head></head>When the Pines twins had first come to the sleepy town of Gravity Falls they had been 12. Never did they expect to find themselves once more drawn back at 27, especially not after the death of Mr. Mystery himself. Now the twins must once more piece together the clues to find the real cause of Stan's untimely demise.</html>


The dollar bill fluttered from Dipper's open hand, landing softly against the casket. Mabel was leaning against him, sniffing softly, her pig waddles clutched tightly to her chest. A few more dollar bills floated from other mourner's outstretched hands and Dipper sighed, dropping his head. The boy snaked his left arm around Mabel's shoulder and squeezed it briefly, a silent sign of support. All was silent for a moment. Dipper lifted his head again, rolling his eyes towards the sky and letting out an exasperated huff.

"Grunkle Stan didn't we do this bit earlier in the summer?" A gruff sigh sounded from behind the small congregation. (Made up of only mystery shack employees.)

"There is no limit when it comes to being prepared kid." Stan Pines marched out in front of them, fully decked out in his Mr. Mystery outfit, one fist planted firmly on his hip, the other gripping his eight ball cane. "I want to make sure you all know what I want my service to be like!" With that he spun around on his heel and made a grand sweeping gesture with both his arms. "Now the dump truck with the bills will finish burying my casket!"

"On it dude!" Soos saluted and trotted off giggling to himself.

"Of course when I really do bite it, I want real bills, not these cheap counterfeit ones!" Wendy who had slyly stuffed one of the dollar bills into her pocket, fished it out and tossed it into the pit; chuckling as Stan turned a frown upon her. Dipper sighed and rolled his eyes again, pushing his hands into his shorts' pockets.

"Of course this is this is the way he'd want to be buried." He snarked under his breath.

С

_This is not the way he'd want to be buried. _Dipper thought to himself staring blankly down at the pinewood casket, the wood choice was what his mother called irony; Dipper called it tragic. It was a simple box, every expense spared. There would be no velvet lined gold casket, no choir of satin robed songbirds, no dollar bills, not for Stanford Pines' funeral. Mabel's hand wrapped firmly in his own hand the young man blinked back the blurring at the edge of his vision. Despite the presence of their significant others the twins found themselves relying upon each other right now. After all there were only four people here who really knew Stan.

"And so it is with a heavy heart…" The stuffy old man leading the mourners droned on. Dipper could feel his sister shaking beside him and for a moment he squeezed her hand tighter believing the shaking to be her crying, then he registered exactly what was happening. It started off quietly, for a moment he believed that he would be the only one to even notice, but at Mabel's giggling rose in volume it became clear that would not be the case.

"I- I'm sorry-" Mabel breathed in-between full belly laughs. "It's just- just-" Dipper suddenly saw where this was going.

"Mabel don't." He whispered in warning but his twin paid him no mind.

"He'd have- he'd have hated this!" There was some disapproving muttering but Mabel seemed all to wrapped up in her laughing fit to notice. "He used to make fun of people for services like this! Called them stuffy and-"

"Mabel, that is enough!" Dipper lifted his gaze, drawing in the image of his father. The man was standing stiff as a board, his hands curled into fists at his sides, jaw locked. For the first time if occurred to Dipper there might be someone else who was having a hard time dealing with Stan's passing, after all he may have been his and Mabel's great uncle but he had been just an uncle to their dad. With one swift movement Dipper whirled around, pulling his twin with him, leaving the congregation behind.

"Mabel… get a hold of yourself." Dipper urged softly, holding the woman by her biceps his gaze searching her face.

"I'm trying Dipper I- I'm trying." Dipper sighed, dropping his head.

"I miss him too." He whispered. For a moment the Pines' siblings stood in silence together, Mabel reining in her hysteria and Dipper offering her silent support.

"You're right you know." A familiar voice spoke and Dipper looked up to a red-haired woman approaching them. "Mr. Pines kinda explicitly told us not to have a "wimpy service" like this didn't he?"

"Well in some less than friendly terms." Dipper found himself chuckling despite himself, smiling sadly at Wendy.

"And I was looking forwards to like driving the dump truck." Soos joined the small group, still wearing the Mystery Shack staff shirt Dipper remembered best. They all laughed for a moment, no doubt drawing some looks from the rest of the mourners.

"I just keep expecting him to come stomping out of the woods and say-" Dipper began.

"Ha! Got you suckers! Shoulda seen the look on your face! Hoo…" Mable finished in an eerily good Stan impression and giving her knee a sharp slap. That caused the small group to erupt into laughter once more. They quieted down, the laughter petering out slightly.

"I missed you guys." Wendy said, flashing the twins a grin.

"Really?" Dipper asked, where once he might have died to hear Wendy say that he now was only genuinely curious.

"Hell yeah!" Wendy grinned, pumping a fist slightly. "God, it's been nothing but boring here since the last time you visited." Dipper glanced to his twin who smiled sadly at that. Then a silence fell over the group, as it stuck them just how different things were this time around.

"At least he was buried on the property, he'd have wanted that at least." Dipper spoke softly.

"Yeah, who knows dude, maybe his ghost will haunt the shack now or something." Soos added, sounding almost too chipper.

"Soos…" Dipper started hesitantly. "Is if okay if I crash in the shack tonight? I was kinda blindsided and didn't have a chance to arrange where I'd be staying."

"Yeah dude! You and your sis are allowed to stay for as long as you want. You know that."

"Thanks." Mabel, who looked relieved that Dipper had asked the question, smiled at the portly man.

"No worries hambone, my casa is your casa."

Т

Dipper stared blankly up at the all too familiar rafters of the shack; Mabel snoring lightly in the bed on the other end of the attic. The first time he had lain in this bed he had been twelve, now at 27 it felt small, cramped and yet the familiar was comforting, especially when so little else was. The shack felt almost empty, even in the dark and with both himself and his sister once more inhabiting it. It struck Dipper that their grunkle had been the one to raise the Mystery Shack to what it was now and with him gone it was almost as if the building itself was mourning.

"Can't sleep can you?" Dipper had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he hadn't noticed that Mabel had stopped snoring.

"No." Was the simple answer.

"One part of me keeps thinking that we'll wake up tomorrow to him calling us to breakfast. The other part keeps wondering if there was anything we could have done… I mean we knew Gravity Falls better than anyone here, if only we had known-"

"Mabel there is no cure for death. If the Journals ever made anything obvious it was that. Even zombies are not a real answer. And Stan was getting on in years, he would have died eventually regardless of anything we could have done."

"I guess…" Mabel sighed. There was a rustling of sheets then silence. Dipper thought that she might had nodded off again when she spoke again, softly, voice wavering with emotion. "I only wish he hadn't been alone."

Dipper lay awake for a few hours more, even long after Mabel had once more escaped into dream. Her words bounced around in his head, so that even when he eventually subsumed to sleep it was restless at best. Still he was unaware of creaking of the shack, or if he was he chalked it up to the shack simply settling. Maybe he should have known better.

_AN: Hey guys, so yeah Gravity Falls! It's pretty much been said before by anyone that ever wrote a "future" GF fic but due to the intentional vagueness of the series and the ever winding plot I will do my best to keep this fic as canon as possible, I am however no Gideon so it is possible that some major plot points from the show will conflict with this fic and it'll be upgraded to an AU. _

_I also promise it won't be quite so bleak from now on, had to set up and not even a GF funeral would be all that enjoyable. _

_Krsh brx jxbv kdyh euxvkhg xs rq brxu Exojduldq. _


End file.
